


Who was the brunette?

by Psychopersonified



Series: Where was the wooing? [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 003 wants to play too, 00Q - Freeform, Eve knows what's up, Fluff, M/M, MI6 women giving 007 a hard time, Oblivious, awkward lift rides, clueless, excuse to be close, intimacy in plain sight, maybe dating?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23591173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psychopersonified/pseuds/Psychopersonified
Summary: Part of the prequel series to "Are we ever going to talk about this?".I'll post little snippets of their 'not dating' days in this series. Little events that draw them together and the intimacy they share in plain sight.------“Oh 007, did you hear? There is the most unusual rumour going around. Seems someone thought they saw the Quartermaster leave last week’s party in an Aston Martin DB5? You wouldn’t know anything about this would you?”------
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: Where was the wooing? [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698100
Comments: 11
Kudos: 236





	Who was the brunette?

**Author's Note:**

> Monday after the Friday party.

**Monday 8:30am - SIS HQ.**

The lift doors open at Parking Level 2 to admit a well rested and impeccably put together Eve Moneypenny.

“Moneypenny, morning. How are you?” Bond says in greeting.

“007. You’re early,” she skips the greeting, her tone a little frosty as she gets into the lift and turns around to face the doors.

“So it’s 007 today? May I know what I’ve done to deserve it this time?” Bond knows enough about women to know that it is _always_ his fault.

“IF you’re interested… _someone_ I call a friend left me all alone at a party last Friday.”

Bond freezes... _ah that_. He’d _completely_ forgotten. He drops his head in embarrassment. After all, It was Eve who convinced him to attend. A decision he was incredibly grateful to her for. He recalls the night and how he spent it in the company of a leggy brunette. 

“Ah… I must apologise. That was terribly ungentlemanly of me,” _pause,_ he needs to get himself out of the doghouse, “How can I make it up to you?”

“Well, for starters, you might tell me who it was that caught your attention. So much so that you left a good friend high and dry?” She’s laying it on a bit thick, but where would the fun be otherwise?

“What makes you think it was a someone? It was an office party after all.”

Eve leans over to him, a hand reaching up towards Bond’s shoulder. He’s still wearing his outer coat, having come straight up from the parking garage. Her hand comes back with a strand of hair between her fingers; she holds it up in front of his eyes - it clearly isn’t his.

“Who’s the brunette?” She teases him.

Bond schools his face into a neutral expression looking straight ahead. _Bloody spies and their deductive skills._

 _-Ding!-_ The lift announces its next stop on Ground Level. The lift doors open, revealing a small group of people waiting for the lift - including Q, R and Mark at the front.

Everyone squeezes in. The lift is packed tight, yet no one wants to take the second lift; a result of the lifts being notoriously slow during rush hours.

There is a chorus of polite greetings:-

“Good Morning.”

“Excuse me.”

“Pardon. Which level?”

“How’s it going?”

“Level 7 please. Thanks.”

There is some awkward shifting as the occupants arrange themselves according to who is going to alight first.

Q ends up standing in front of Bond, back to him.

Eve has a mischievous glint in her eyes. She still has the strand of hair between her fingers. So she lifts it and holds it up to the back of Q’s head. The colour and length is an _exact_ match.

Bond slides his eyes towards her. He wants to smack her hand away. They are in a packed lift for Christssake. Eve’s little action catches R’s attention and she tilts her head thoughtfully at them. Eve shots her a meaningful look.

The lift dings their arrival at Level 3. Five people alight except for Bond, Eve, Q, R and Mark - they are headed for the Executive floor on Level 12 to their respective meetings.

The remaining occupants sigh in relief. They start moving apart to give each other more personal space. But before they can do that, _six_ more SIS employees enter - making it worse than before.

“Hold the lift please! Thanks!” A - _seventh-_ person calls just as the doors start to close. A breathless Accounts Department employee squeezes her way in while struggling to carry two cardboard boxes of files. Everyone has to politely shuffle closer to the back to make room.

Bond is forced all the way to the back corner of the lift, the hand rails digging into his back. Eve has to move to the other corner. He can’t help but roll his eyes in annoyance. _Why couldn’t M see him later in the morning?_

This leaves the Quartermaster on his side of the lift. Q also has to shift back but accidentally steps on Bond’s expensive Italian leather shoe and jolts away too quickly in apology - nearly losing his balance.

“Oh! My apologies—,” It comes out as a rushed whisper.

“—you’re alright.” Bond places his hands on Q’s waist to steady him. Q is wearing only a cardigan made from the softest cashmere over his dress shirt and tie. Bond can feel the warmth of the flesh underneath. He uses the slightest pressure to pull Q backwards into his personal space, so that the others can move in.

Q’s right shoulder blade makes contact with one of Bond’s pectorals. But the younger man makes no protest, on the contrary - unless Bond’s imagining it, he feels Q lean further into the touch. They are pressed close in the compact space, he can smell the fresh scent of Q’s soap and shampoo.

Maybe there _is_ some good that comes from being in crowded lifts. The rest of the ride up feels like an eternity spent in awkward silence for everyone inside with the only distraction being the soft jazzy elevator music. It feels like the lift made a stop at every floor.

Bond does not remove his hands until the lift arrives at Level 12 where M’s office is located. They all alight. Bond and Moneypenny head directly to M’s office. The techies movie off to the conference room for the monthly joint Ops meeting.

Eve waits until she is alone with Bond just outside of her office to ask:

“Oh 007, did you hear? There is the most _unusual_ rumour going around. Seems someone thought they saw the Quartermaster leave last week’s party in an Aston Martin DB5? You wouldn’t know anything about this would you?”

 _Busted._ Yes, so he did spend the party stuck to the Quartermaster’s side. And yes, he did steal Q out for a post revelry kebab supper - which may have included a long stroll along the river after. Finally yes, he did make sure Q got to his doorstep at the end of the very late night/early morning, but only out of concern for his safety.

Bond considers his options. _“_ Name your price.”

“What exactly are you implying? I’m offended that you’d think I’d stoop to blackmail—“ Eve places a hand over her heart in mock indignation, “—but I suppose since you do owe me an apology…” She bats her eyelashes at him.

She mulls over it, “There is this restaurant in Soho, it’s booked out for months. But I’m sure you have your ways around it. My family is in town next week.”

She unlocks the door to the office, letting them both in. “I’ll text you the details.”

“Consider it done.” Bond assures her courtly, he really was sorry about ditching her on Friday. Nevertheless, he is surprised at how easy he is being let off on this - when you consider how protective Eve can be over their Chief Boffin.

“Aren’t you going to warn me off?” Bond wonders aloud.

“Do I have to? It _is_ still just a harmless game... _isn’t it_?” She searches his face for any indication otherwise, though she reckons she knows the answer even if Bond himself doesn’t know it yet.

He holds the door open for her. M arrives behind them cutting off any answer he might have.

———

**Friday 4:30pm - SIS HQ**

If Bond has to hear about North Korea again in the next 3 months, it would still be too soon. He had just finished an _-all day-_ strategy conference with Mallory, 009 and their KoreanStation Chief about how MI6 was going to extract their operatives embedded in the regime in the face of the recent crackdowns.

It is not that he’s being insensitive, the meeting is critical and he had played his part in contributing to the discussion and assessing the tactics available to them. It is just that both M and 009 have a tendency to prattle on (his opinion) and discuss _ad nauseam_ every detail, while 007 prefers to… well, get on with it.

Unsurprisingly the meeting ran overtime and Bond is feeling peckish. And when his blood sugar runs low, his patience runs thin. At least this time, he had managed to behave long enough for the meeting to end.

It takes him 20 excruciating minutes to reach Q-Branch. It is Friday afternoon, and like any other civil service, MI6 lobbies and lifts are a hive of activity with most employees trying to wrap up for an early weekend.

Most of the time was spent waiting for the lifts, and then riding the lift, then letting people in and then out the lift - there _has_ to be a better system to organise the lift service.

Bond is inordinately relived when he finally arrives at Q-Branch all the way in the basement floors of the building.

Once he’s through the doors, he makes a beeline for Q’s office nook and Q’s desk. The man is not around, but Bond helps himself with familiar ease. Bond pulls open the second drawer and retrieves a bar of protein snack from the stash in the drawer.

He is almost finished with the bar when he realises that Q has not returned to his desk and is nowhere to be seen on the work floor. Curious, he makes a circuit of the floor trying to be surreptitious.

Jamila catches him ‘not’ looking and puts him out of his misery. “He’s downstairs, in the Firearms Lab with 003,” she doesn’t bother asking if he is there on official business.

Bond tries not to look like he’s been caught, but manners win out and he attempts a casual, “...Thank you.” - his feet starting to carry him towards the main doors.

“Badge!” Jamila calls out to remind him.

Bond backtracks smoothly, heading to Q’s desk and that second drawer to grab his blasted employee ID badge that he keeps in there. He can get away without it on the upper floors, but the Lower Ground labs contain live ammunition and thus require extra authentication for security.

—-

The labs are a study of industrial utilitarian design - an amalgamation of concrete, steel and glass.

003 is easy to locate. Her stunning if scant evening gown incongruous in the surroundings. Bond can only see her from the back. She has one stiletto heel resting on something in front of her.

As he draws nearer, his viewing angle changes and he can see what or more accurately _who_ her heel is propped up on.

Their Quartermaster is on one knee in front of her. The toes of her shoe resting on his thigh. The side slit of the dress is cut high and hides very little.

Q is adjusting her thigh holster, a specially designed and fabricated skin-coloured thing worn fairly high on the leg to make it less obvious. To improve stability, the holster is anchored with clips that connect directly to 003’s one piece undergarment. 

“Oh Q, the material is perfect - incredibly comfortable, but the fit needs to be tighter.” She provides him with feedback. When she looks up, she catches Bond in the reflection of a nearby glass wall - watching them with wide blue eyes. 

“Yes, right. There is an adjustment strap on the inside so all you have to do is… “ Q pulls at the tab - careful not to touch her skin in so much as he can, seeing that the tab is located near the inner thigh. 003 gathers her skirt up higher to allow him better access.

From Bond’s angle, their combined actions are grossly inappropriate.

“…pull this tab to adjust for the required fit. We’ve gone with the new hook-and-loop fasteners so they shouldn’t catch on most fabrics, even delicate ones. This should allow you to use it with any frock of your choice.“ Q explains still oblivious.

“How thoughtful of you Q. I don’t suppose you could make them in… lace trim?” She says to the top Q’s head, smirking into the refection, raising a perfect eyebrow at 007.

“We can make them in any colour or trim you’d like 003. Just let us know what you need. Please allow for a few weeks though, as the elastane base material is specially sent for.” Q looks up at her with a shy smile.

“Oh you spoil us Q. We never had such personalised service until you came along.” She coos down at him while she ran one hand lightly through his hair combing back his fringe while the other formed a hooked finger under his chin to tip his head up to her.

003 is wearing a self-satisfied grin. _What a picture they made!_ Her deft manoeuvring had Q looking like the very picture of a besotted young man attending submissively to his object of infatuation.

She sees 007 in the refection clenching and unclenching his hands. _Whoops…._ she knows 007, having worked him with him over the years. They get along fine. But this new development is interesting. _What is his problem anyway?_

Perhaps it would be best to end this here for now.

“Well, thank you Quartermaster. I’d best not take up anymore of your time. Will it be alright if I stayed here to have a chat with 007?” She dismisses him politely, adjusting her skirt and removing her heel from his thigh.

“Oh, yes of course. Sure.” Q stands, brushing his trousers.

“Ah 007, I didn’t see you there—,” the sentence is cut off when Q catches Bond’s blazing blue eyes and dark expression and is confused, “D… did you need anything?”

Bond schools his expression back to neutral. “Not at the moment. Just need a quick word with 003. Meet you back upstairs?”

Q collects his tablet and nods his leave to both of the agents.

When Q is out the doors, 007 closes the distance between him and 003 - who to her credit is not cowed. Instead of stepping back, she steps sideways and the two double-0 agents circle each other for a few moments.

“Oh don’t look at me like that!” she finally says, exasperated with his posturing, also she was getting dizzy with the circling. They were friends, well as much as trained assassins with trust issues can be.

“You—,” she points a finger at him, “—need to learn how to share. You monopolised all of his time last Friday night! After that delicious display of his, I’d like to take him out clubbing and see what else is hiding under that cardigan wearing persona.” She confesses, but still annoyed at 007.

She makes a squeezing motion with her hands, a gesture usually reserved for when talking about cute animals, “He’s so adorable I want to _stuff_ him in my pocket--,” then she indicates to her skin tight dress, “—if I had any.”

Bond is not moved. He feels like they are siblings negotiating playtime allotment with a favourite pet or toy. Well, he was an only child and he had never learnt to share.

“The rest of us would like to play too you know. Alec says—,” 003 nearly throws a tantrum.

“He’s not a _plaything_!” Bond’s vehement whisper surprises even him. _Where did that come from?_

“Pot. Kettle…” Comes her practiced reply. But something in his tone catches up to her. She studies him closer. Bond appears to be grappling internally with his own words.

 _-Oh.My.God-_ _Can it be?_ 003 abandons her petulant tantrum. The adult slipping back into place.

“You’re not… _playing_ anymore are you?” the question comes from a place of genuine interest.

No answer. Just a sullen 007 staring at his feet, hands in his pockets.

“Huh! Of all the people you choose...” She shakes her head at him.

Well then, there is only one thing left to do. She comes right up close to him, cups his face in her perfectly manicured hands, forcing him to look at her - then says with as much sisterly fondness as she could muster:-

“Don’t. Cock. It. Up.”

\-----


End file.
